I recently purchased an almost new, HP Office Jet Pro 7740 Wide Format Printer. It still had a lot of unused ink cartridges inside, so I started using it straight away, planning to add it to my HP Instant Ink account the following day. However, to my dismay - the HP Instant Ink service is not available for this printer - unless you live in Canada (according to many Google searches).
I then headed over to Amazon to purchase some 953XL ink cartridges, but didn't get very far upon discovering they are priced at over £160 (at the time of writing) for a full set of black, magenta, cyan and yellow inks - more than I paid for printer itself. Just a single black cartridge was around £46.
Continuing my hunt for a cheaper option, I discovered a few sellers offering chipped cartridges for around £40 for a full set (at the time of writing). A bargain certainly, if they worked! Dubiously I purchased a full set and hoped for the best. A few weeks later, when the original HP ink cartridges ran out, I took the plunge and inserted the alternative cartridges.
Immediately an error message appeared on the screen saying these non HP cartridges had been blocked. Nothing in the printer settings allowed me to bypass this, even if I reset the printer to factory defaults, they were still blocked.
Finally, I discovered a website called Cartridge World, which provided various firmware downgrade files. After checking with Trust Pilot that they were a legitimate company (and indeed they were) I went ahead and downloaded the firmware downgrade file. Once my anti-virus had checked the file and found nothing out the ordinary, I went ahead and downgraded my firmware which was super simple (step by step guide below). As soon as it had finished the downgrade, I inserted the non HP Ink Cartridges - and the error message was non existent. Thank you Cartridge World!
Here's a step by step guide on how to use non HP Ink Cartridges with your HP 7740 Printer using a Windows computer:
On your printers touchscreen, navigate to settings and reset your printer back to factory defaults.
Once the printer has finished resetting, open settings once more and disable automatic updates.
Add the printer to your network (the same network that your Windows computer is connected to)
Download the HP 7740 firmware downgrade file from Cartridge World by clicking here.
Open and install the exe file, then allow it to search your network for connected printers.
Once it has found your printer, click continue and wait whilst the downgrade is executed.
Once your printer has finished the downgrade and rebooted, your non HP ink cartridges should work perfectly!
For HP OfficeJet Pro 7720, 7730, 8210, 8216, 8218, 8710, 8715, 8718, 8720, 8725, 8730, 8740, 8745, 6950, 6954, 6960, 6962, 6968, 6970 or 6978 printers, visit Cartridge World's Firmware Downgrades page to download the corresponding firmware file for your HP Printer model that uses 953XL Ink Cartridges (see screenshot below).
WARNING: YOU MUST INSTALL THE CORRECT FIRMWARE FILE. If you don't, you could "brick" your printer permanently.
